HMN 2025: How Diabetes risk in childhood cancer survivors is targeted through digital health monitoring

A researcher at The University of Texas at Arlington is helping a leading national cancer center explore how wearable devices could help childhood cancer survivors avoid long-term health complications such as diabetes and heart disease.

Yue Liao, assistant professor of kinesiology at UT Arlington, was invited by researchers at City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, to contribute to a review article published in Cancer. The article examines how survivors of childhood cancer face elevated risks of chronic conditions such as diabetes and how digital health tools could help detect—and possibly prevent—these diseases earlier.

“Wearable sensors let us monitor daily fluctuations—your blood glucose levels, vital signs, even mood or behavior—over weeks, months, or years,” Dr. Liao said. “That gives us new insight into disease risk and behavior that we didn’t have access to with infrequent one-time measurements, like data obtained from clinical visits.”

Liao identified two key components to using digital health tools as part of an intervention strategy:

1. Supplementing traditional metrics with data from wearable sensors—such as real-time glucose variability and behavioral patterns—that may uncover new risk indicators.
2. Redefining diabetes risk assessment for childhood cancer survivors, who face a higher risk compared to the general population, by using this technology to capture more individual data.

Liao brings extensive experience in this area. At UTA, she serves as director of the Physical Activity and Wearable Sensors Lab, which focuses on using mobile technology and wearable sensors to monitor daily behaviors such as physical activity, eating and sleeping. She previously held a postdoctoral fellowship and later served as an instructor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center from 2015–20.

Liao said intervention planning for childhood cancer survivors differs significantly from strategies for adults due to the survivors’ longer expected lifespans.

“Their survivorship trajectory is much longer, and that makes their aging-related disease risk more complicated,” she said.

However, younger survivors may also be more receptive to digital health programs, particularly those that integrate with technology they already use.

“There’s a lot of health-related data being generated already,” Liao said. “So, it’s a matter of figuring out how we can responsibly and effectively use it for health promotion and disease prevention purposes.”